You Do Count - BoA Backs Off Predatory Debit Fee

We all know our vote doesn't count. We all know our government elected officials simply doe whatever corporate lobbyists want them to do and America be damned. But there is one vote that still seems to matter these days and that's your vote as a consumer. You just won. Bank of America dropped their $5 buck a month debit card fee:

Bank of America Corp. has dropped its plan to charge customers $5 a month for making purchases with their debit cards, responding to a customer backlash after the fee was announced in September.

The move is the highest-profile retreat following decisions by several rivals in recent days to drop customer tests of the new fees. SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. also said Monday that they will stop charging customers for debit-card transactions. The announcements also follow decisions last week by Wells Fargo & Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to drop customer tests of the new fees.

These boots are made for walkin' America and by voting with your feet, you just won a small victory in a sea of legislative and corporate pain.

Consumer action is easy and in the case of banking, none too hard either. Do you really want to pay 22% interest on a credit card? I think not and you can do better. Just get out there and start investigating other products and services. When that corporation treats you mean, you better shop around.

Folks, your shoppin' is 70% GDP. That means if all Americans act in concert, singing the same song, literally you can force change.

Beyond moving your money out of predatory lenders, you can vote with your feet on a barrage of issues and outrages. You can insist products are made in America with U.S. workers, you can buy local and most of all, you can do what this fed up woman did. Start a petition and spread the news via social networks. You can tell these various corporations to hit the road.

U.S. workers are daily getting the shaft but when it comes to buying stuff, including banking services, that $10.8 trillion bucks we spend actually buys a little power.

Preach it to the choir folks, you can affect change.

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Comments

While this post is fun, there is some strong truth behind it. If Congress had tried to reduce debit fees through legislation, never would have happened. Move your trillions, one thousand dollars at a time, out of bank's deposits......then, magically, something happens.

You may not have any money, but together, we still do have money and money is power in America.

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it's the new form of democracy: voting with your pocketbook. no need for pesky elections and such silly things associated with old school D. this new form combines free markets with free people. Everybody wins! YAY!

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From news letter today (6 November 2011) from Stephen Zarlenga to "Friends of the American Monetary Institute" --

It is time for each and every one of us to get involved on a personal level. ....

This weekend, national actions were mounted to "Make Wall Street Pay." Their idea is to mobilize marches to shut down certain egregious retail banks and organize a mass movement of consumer deposits from large banks to smaller banks and credit unions. This is a noble cause; we fully support this initiative to move money out of Wall Street. Unfortunately, if they think this campaign is a silver bullet, they are missing the point! We have limited power as consumers to reduce the reserves of large banks, as much of the money that backs our fractional reserve bank credit is held in pension funds, institutional deposits, and high net-worth individuals. To take our country back from Wall Street, we need to act collectively not only as consumers, but as citizens, and pass HR 2990. ....

Best wishes! Good luck! Remember this is a non-partisan activity!

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